Conventional monitoring approaches provide simple alarm signals with minimal information to homeowners or business owners. Conventional alarm signals indicate (i) a door or a window has been opened (i.e., using contact sensors), (ii) a warm moving object about the size of a human has entered the premises (i.e., using a PIR motion detector), (iii) a smoke detector has been triggered, and (iv) a carbon monoxide (CO) detector has been triggered. Such alarm solutions are being practiced by prevalent alarm monitoring industry leaders. Conventional monitoring systems are primarily indoor solutions that are not effective as prevention tools because criminals are already inside the premises when alarms are activated. With conventional monitoring systems, criminals most likely will not be deterred from stealing and simply leave before the police arrive.
The disadvantages of conventional approaches are significant. The technology of conventional approaches is old (developed in 1970s). There are four major pain points that limit the usage of the old technology to about 20% of US households. The root cause of the problem is that the detection is done “indoor”.
A first major pain point is that conventional approaches are hard to use. Homeowners have to arm and disarm alarm systems manually. Arming and disarming alarm systems on a daily basis is inconvenient. Homeowners often do not bother to arm monitoring systems. Many burglars know that most alarm systems are simply not used.
A second major pain point is that conventional approaches detect intruders and/or abnormal activities too late. The detection occurs after the unfortunate event has already happened. Intruders know they have time before police arrive. Intruders know that sometimes police do not respond.
A third major pain point is that conventional approaches have a very high false alarm rate (i.e., over 90%). The primary cause of high false alarm rates is user error. User error is often due to the difficulty of use of alarm systems (i.e., the first pain point). The second cause of high false alarm rates is equipment failure. By contract, homeowners are responsible for testing and/or maintaining the monitoring equipment. The alarm monitoring industry has little incentive to ensure the monitoring equipment functions properly. High false alarm rates discourage police response. Some cities (i.e., San Jose, Calif. and Fremont, Calif.) have publicly stated that police forces will not respond to security alarm calls unless the alarms are verified. Many alarm systems are not equipped with video surveillance to verify an alarm because the alarm monitoring industry charges high fees to install and monitor the video surveillance in a home. In addition, indoor video surveillance causes privacy concern among most homeowners.
A fourth major pain point of conventional approaches is cost. Monitoring systems from the alarm monitoring industry require multi-year contracts. Multi-year contracts are used because cost structure is high. The high cost structure (i.e., $1,500 per contract for a basic package) is due to the cost of direct sales and professional installation of monitoring equipment. The most efficient way to recover the high cost structure is to ask for a multi-year contract.
It would be desirable to implement a sensor to characterize the behavior of a visitor or a notable event.